Harvard: Video Games Don't Turn Kids Into Killers

Kutner and Olson studied 1200 middle-school children in a $1.5 million federally funded study. Instead of studying the children in the laboratory,
like other studies, the pair actually sat down and talked to kids after long bouts of game playing – sometimes in excess of 15 hours a week. The
lucky kids played a variety of games from the very non-violent The Sims to grandma shooting, pedestrian bashing Grand Theft Auto.

They discovered that children who played violent video games – those rated Mature or above – were just relieving stress. Some children did
exhibit some playful fighting after playing games, but this was similar to what children have always done after watching action or Karate-type
movies.

Perhaps the most startling finding (at least for people the likes of Jack Thompson) is that boys that don’t play any video games at all are
now considered to be socially inept. A danger sign for boys is “not playing video games at all, because it looks like for this generation, video
games are a measure of social competence,” says Kutner and Olsen.

SO

. As a gamer I am happy to hear this, this shows that I'm normal

. Not playing games is not normal for guys.
To tell ya'll the truth, I'm the wussiest one can find and I play video games with some great degree of violence.

My cousin once said, "I like ganster rap, but I know it is not real." The problem with video games, gangster rap, and violent movies is not that
they will turn good kids into criminals or sociopaths, but that they might unduly sway kids that lack the intelligence or emotional stability that
they need to distinguish between fantasy and reality. At which point we have to ask ourselves does every kid have to watch Sesame street because one
in a hundred or one in a thousand kids does not quite understand Grand Theft Auto is just a fantasy.

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